It’s only funny until you’re on the losing end of things.
The Republicans received a smackdown of epic proportions on Tuesday and, with as many as three Senate seats likely headed for recount, things may yet get worse. Still, after the last two elections being chock full of voter suppression and intimidation, corrupted e-voting machines, voter suppression and counting irregularities, it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to read pieces like this from the ultra-conservative rag, The American Spectator.
The conspiracy theory panic in the article begins:
We received a note that there was a possibility that Multnomah County’s election offices were flooded and that the “press was being asked to leave.” It sounded sketchy, so I called to check it out.
OMG, the Oregon Democrats made it pour down rain in November to intentionally flood the Multnomah County election offices so they could cheat their way to a Merkley win!
Or…maybe not:
According to Shawn Cunningham in their public affairs office, no press has been asked to leave whatsoever. There’s a little bit of water in the basement, “the building was built in 1925,” and they needed to move the ballots, which the press is welcome to bear witness to. He says that there are observers watching this process closely. I haven’t yet checked in with GOP or DNC observers, but that’s the word so far.
Did they seriously think Smith had a chance to win in Multnomah County? Talk about grasping at straws. Gordon Smith used to be a fairly decent guy, on par with the old John McCain in terms of being not too far right of center, and generally working well with both sides to keep things moving forward. Things really started to come undone for Smith, however, when the Willamette Week exposed his hypocrisy regarding illegal immigration, allegations he adamantly denied in an interview with right-wing hack Lars Larson during which he called the report a “hatchet-job”, egging WWeek into returning to Eastern Oregon and getting not one, but 5 undocumented workers who were or had been employed by Smith Frozen Foods to go on record. In response to this second story:
“I think this means trouble for Gordon Smith,” says KXL’s conservative talk-show host Lars Larson, who’s usually in Republicans’ corner but is a critic of Smith on this issue. “If it turns out he has employed people illegally when he has claimed he has not, that’s a problem.”
But back to the American Spectator article for a minute. After it was written, and the reporter followed up via phone with Multnomah County Elections officials, he later updated the page with the following:
UPDATE: Does anyone know anyone who’s actually observing here?
Seriously? Smith had an initial lead on Election Day and several hours into the following day because all of the rural counties had counted 100% of their ballots. Those counties, unsurprisingly, lean heavily Republican. Once Lane and Multnomah counties, which are much more populated, started to catch up in the ballot counting, however, Merkley shot right past Smith. Anyone who was watching the local TV broadcasts Tuesday night could see, both in his facial expressions and body language, that Smith knew his lead wasn’t large enough to overcome the inevitability of the Multnomah County vote. Political analyst, Tim Hibbits, said as much Wednesday morning when, in spite of Smith currently leading, he was standing by his projection of a Merkley win.
Not to be outdone, the Republicans in Minnesota are already starting to suggest foul play in the Coleman/Franken race as well.
Maybe now Republicans will be more open to the idea of reforming the voting process in our country. I’ve already put forth an idea as to how we can begin to fix this. It’s time to set aside differences and combine forces to find a solution once and for all. Without a joint effort, every election is always going to be viewed as flawed by one side or the other, with someone feeling cheated.
Then again, maybe that’s been the point all along.
–Gordy
